Wednesday, September 24, 2008
MP3s of the Future. Is it a need or a want?
Friday, September 12, 2008
Why usability is no longer enough: the need to design for Persuasion, Emotion, & Trust (PET)
HFI's PET DesignTM offers a new approach to help companies influence and deepen their interactions with online customers through Persuasion, Emotion, and Trust. This methodology is the result of extensive research, pilot programs, and client engagements with Fortune 500 companies over the past several years.
Whether a website is e-commerce, informational, or transactional, its mandate is to establish deeper relationships with customers. Understanding how and why people make online decisions that lead to conversion, and the subtle motivators and emotional triggers that influence how they react to website messages and content, is vital to maximizing the success of a site.
Traditional usability practices focus on creating efficient sites that are simple and easy to use. Thus, usability deals with the “can do” aspect of design (i.e., can users find information, understand content, or complete a task?). But just because a site is easy to use doesn’t mean it will engage consumers and meet business goals.
HFI’s PET Design builds on a foundation of good usability, but goes beyond “can do” to optimize the values of persuasion, emotion, and trust, ultimately influencing what users will do on a website. This helps companies achieve their online objectives, whether that is getting people to buy a product, sign-up for a newsletter, donate to a cause, ask their doctor about a drug, vote for a candidate, invest, etc.
What are your thoughts about this shift toward persuasive design?